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Sunday, 22 March 2015

6 Things I Actually Learnt From Highschool

1. Your teachers are people too.

There is an evident change between your relationships with your teachers when you upgrade from middle-school to high-school. Your teachers are no longer intimidating, but become inspiring instead. The older you get, the more you start to relate to them and eventually (in grades 11 and 12), they go out, eat, drink and socialise just like you do. Weird huh?

2. I still, to date, have not used algebra

I wasn't an academic, although I did have to take maths. Now, a lot of people may say otherwise, but after being 3 years out of school...I still have not calculated my groceries I buy at Coles using Pythagoras Theorem. This applies to generally every subject- what you are taught in class you will only keep bits of- however that is not to say that it isn't worth learning. It's educational and could be useful one day.

3. A 6 hour day is short

Its true, the real world is relentless. If you're lucky you'll score a 9-5 job, otherwise you get handed split shifts, night work, shift work or worse- no work at all. So, enjoy it while you can. Going to school for 6 hours a day, to pretty much socialise is something we all think back to whilst day dreaming.

4. Your social clique does not define you.

Its certainly important, from 8-3, 365 days for 12 years of your life that you maintain an alter ego. That what you do, how you act and what sort of friends you have within your schooling years affects your social cohesion with the world. But, once you graduate and move on with your life and do things you really want to do and meet people you really want to be around, your social group from school disintegrates to 2-3 close friends and your social group that used to be, is maybe, not what it used to be. And that is okay.

5. Your grades are not a measure of your intelligence.

When you get a C in school, its assumed that your intelligence is lower than average. Because at school, we are all confined to one education syllabus, everyone is meant to learn and understand equally. Which so clearly, is not true. We are all different. How we learn, what we learn and when we learn, varies from one to another. Someone might be better at you at something, and you may be better at something than someone else. Its how life works, everyone works to their strengths which may be someone else's weaknesses.

6. There will always be someone prettier, smarter and skinnier than you. It is up to you define yourself around this.

Self explanatory but sometimes it needs to be repeated and understood. You cannot be the best at everything. School is the playground for self destruction. It worsens outside of school too. You will never be the greatest at everything, but you can always be you. Never try to be someone you are not. Never beat yourself down for not having something that someone else does. You have qualities that other people admire, and just because you grew up in a social realm of high school sweethearts, academics, athletes, models and other forms of talent, doesn't mean that you aren't great. School is brutal, and no one likes it while they are there. But its an inevitable chapter of your life that helps you form who you want to be. It guides you into seeing who you are and what sort of person you are becoming. School isn't books and homework and dances- it is so much more than that.